Charles C. Goetsch Collection of Litchfield Law School Notebooks 1790 -1833, 1789-2013

After graduating from Harvard Law School's LL.M. program and while serving as a Visiting Scholar and American Bar Foundation Fellow in Legal History at the Yale Law School, Charles C. Goetsch '76 began identifying and collecting the most important Litchfield Law School Notebooks. His goal was to transcribe and publish the most important notebooks of the School. The Litchfield Law School was the first law school in America and was founded by Judge Tapping Reeve in 1784.

Charles C. Goetsch traveled to university libraries and historical societies where he obtained copies of the most representative notebooks from the Early Period (1790-1798) when Tapping Reeve alone lectured, the Middle Period (1798-1820) when Reeve and James Gould lectured, and the Late Period (1820-1833) when Gould alone lectured. His project was continually sidelined by his work and never fully completed.

In 2001, Goetsch donated several photocopies of notebooks to the University of Connecticut School of Law as well as much of his research materials including notecards and books (see Graduate Report Fall 2000/Spring 2001 Giving Back story, p. 27).

Goestch received his LL.M.from Harvard, and his J.D. from the University of Connecticut School of Law where he was editor of the University of Connecticut Law Review. He earned his B.A. from Brown University.

A Brief History of the Litchfield Law School: https://todayincthistory.com/2022/12/05/december-5-americas-first-law-schools-first-hire-3/

As a professor at the first law school established in the United States, Connecticut legal luminary James Gould helped educate some of the most important legal minds in early 19th-century America. Gould was born in Branford, Connecticut today in 1770. His parents initially doubted his promise as a scholar because of his exceptionally poor eyesight, which they believed would be too great an obstacle for the bright young man to overcome. Nevertheless, Gould persevered in his studies and graduated from Yale College at the age of 21. Gould remained in New Haven for two more years in the college’s employ as a tutor while also studying law under a local judge. In 1795, Gould and his wife Sally settled in Sally’s hometown of Litchfield, where he continued studying law at the Litchfield Law School — the first law school in the nation, founded 23 years earlier by Tapping Reeve. Reeve clearly considered Gould to be one of his most promising students; three years later, when Reeve was appointed to the Connecticut Supreme Court, he asked Gould to join him as a co-instructor at the school. (Previously, Reeve had been the sole instructor.)

Together with Reeve, Gould developed a regimented, 14-month curriculum wherein students would study, recite, and debate Blackstone’s Commentaries and other seminal legal works of British — and early American — jurisprudence before pursuing more practical experience as legal apprentices working alongside established judges and lawyers. In 1820, due to poor health, Reeve formally relinquished full control of the Litchfield Law School to James Gould, who ran the school for 13 more years before his own declining health forced him to close the school for good. During his tenure of 35 years, Gould authored a number of significant legal commentaries and textbooks and taught hundreds of law students, many of whom would play significant roles in early American legal and political circles. According to the Connecticut Judicial Branch Law Library, the alumni of the Litchfield Law School included 28 senators, 101 congressmen, 14 governors, and 13 Supreme Court chief justices. Among the most famous names are vice presidents Aaron Burr, Jr. and John C. Calhoun, as well as educator Horace Mann and Levi Woodbury, the first U.S. Supreme Court justice to have attended a formal law school. Thanks to James Gould, the bar for early American law was set higher than ever, beginning today in Connecticut history.

Further Reading: “James Gould,” Litchfield Historical Society “Tapping Reeve and the Litchfield Law School,” State of Connecticut Judicial Branch Law Library “Museums: Tapping Reeve House and the Litchfield Law School,” Litchfield Historical Society